Pieve dei Santissimi Cosma e Damiano

Pieve dei Santissimi Cosma e Damiano

The parish church is located in San Damiano, on Viale Roma, the main street running through the village. The street was given this name in compliance with a circular issued by Mussolini on 27 July 1931. The church of Saints Cosmas and Damian has existed since Roman times and is a beautiful example of a late mediaeval church: writing inscribed on a brick on the outside of the Church bears witness to the fact that the current building was already standing in 1077. Until 1769, this was the main church of Mercato Saraceno and all the town’s citizens were baptized here.The church was built over the remains of a pagan temple dedicated to the worship of the goddess Ceres (1st century AD) around 850 AD. Written testimony of the church exists dating back to 972, when Onesti, archbishop of Ravenna, granted the perpetual lease of the parish lands to Pietro degli Onesti.Inside: "The Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist and St. Anthony the Abbot", is an altarpiece, dated 1601, by the painter Bernardino Guarini from Ravenna."The Assumption of the Virgin" is a fresco dated 1751, a work by the painter Michele Valbonesi from Ranchio while in his twenties. It depicts a particularly dynamic assumption that dominates the cupola of the presbytery.The vault of the nave contains paintings of "St.Vicinius at prayer", "The delivery of the keys", "The Transfiguration and The Sacrifice of Melchizedek"."The martyrdom of Saints Cosmas and Damian," an oil on canvas by Michele Valbonesi from Ranchio (1731-1808), is placed on the altar, and dates back to the mid-eighteenth century. A Roman sarcophagus containing the remains of Valeriano Sabino, a youth who died at the age of 17, and dating from the third century AD, was found together with the remains of some villas and a small necropolis, in the area where the parish church of San Damiano now stands. The sarcophagus is now in the chancel of the Church